


Love

by magicalmaud



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: ADHD, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Only If You Want, Pre-Canon, References to Depression, Social Anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:41:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25902997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicalmaud/pseuds/magicalmaud
Summary: John B has only ever loved five people. Half of them left him.This is the story of how John B met his best friends and learned to trust them, even with all his emotional baggage.
Relationships: JJ & John B. Routledge, John "Big John" Routledge & John B. Routledge, John B & the Pogues, Kiara & John B. Routledge, Pope & John B. Routledge
Kudos: 24





	Love

**Author's Note:**

> Hey ! I watched obx a while ago and now I'm totally obsessed with it, so I just randomly started to write. Please know that I'm French and I only learned English in school (and on this app let's be honest)
> 
> Please leave a comment and a kudo if you liked what you're about to read. PLEASE I REALLY NEED VALIDATION.
> 
> Well that's it. Enjoy this little story, and take care of yourself :)

John B has only ever loved five people. 

The first ones were his parents. They taught him love, and they made him discover hate. He hated the screams in the house, he hated how his mum looked when his dad was leaving for one of his "business trip". Then his mom left. And he hated her so much. And he hated his dad for letting her go, and himself, for not being good enough for her.

After that, John B basically learnt that love meant pain. So he promised himself not to love ever again.

And John B met JJ. It was at this weird school where kids from the Cut were sent. They kind of looked like each other, and were both called John.  
They were sitting together at the back of the class, next to the window. John B had this surfer figurine they used to play with all day long. Without even realising it, JJ became his best friend, and John B hab just discovered a new kind of love. The best one. They never left each other's side at school, hit the ones who insulted them for JJ's smell or John B long hair. Both of them had obvious abandonment issues, so they just hoped they'd stay friends forever and didn't really talk to anyone else. John B was anxious around people he didn't know well and JJ was worried if he got close to more people, he'd have more chances to end up in foster care. 

This routine worked until middle school, when they met Pope and Kiara. JJ was the one asking Kiara to eat with them because she was alone, and she talked about climate change for the whole meal. None of the boys were really listening, but John B saw the look in JJ's eyes, he really liked her. Kiara was indeed very pretty, but it's a weird choice that JJ made because she's a Kook, and both John B and JJ hated Kooks. 

After that day Kiara eats everyday with them, and gradually invites herself in their duo. She soon becomes just Kie because she doesn't like the mark of her parents on her back, she tells them it's just like her family money, and she feels like she doesn't deserve it. The boys secretly agree. Why would she have money when we can't ? When we can't even have proper families ?

Kie also brings them food, so maybe she actually deserves this money, because she's so nice, and the boys are not, indeed, nice. Kie also has so many friends, which confuses John B and JJ, but they are not going to complain if it's them she wants to hang out with. 

Pope enters their life the same year as Kie. JJ was also the one to befriend him, because John B was never good at making contact with anyone. He's too rough, too hyperactive, unable to focus on everything longer than a minute, which made him quite an unpleasant company for anyone who had things to say.

JJ was angry that day. He had slept in John B's bed, after the brown boy stitched him up. JJ was angry and wanted to punch someone. Topper seemed to be an easy solution, the two boys fought all the time and a hate existed between them way farther than juste the kook/pogue thing. 

Little did JJ know one of his famous anger outburst would make him meet his third and last best friend. JJ actually cared about the kid Topper was harassing, or that's what he told the direction of the school after a teacher broke the fight. The boy, Pope, knew JJ as the troublemaker of the class, but actually turned to thank John B and Kie for protecting him, because they were always there to prevent JJ's damages from going too far. 

John B just smiled awkwardly, but Kie actually asked him to spend lunch period with them. Pope did, because his parents were always telling him to try to make friends, but the boy never actually thought he'd be getting along with John B the daydreamer, JJ the troublemaker, and Kiara, the outcasted Kook. 

The minute JJ joined them for lunch, he greeted Pope as if there were already best friends, and in a way, they were, because it never stopped. 

Kie got used to it quite quickly, but it took more time to John B, who didn't want another friend if it was to get heartbroken later. 

It was actually Kie who broke his heart, when she had to leave for the kook academy. It wasn't her choice, she didn't want to have anything to do with any Kook, but she went there anyway, leaving the Pogues with a kind of void no one could really fill.

John B and JJ started to work this year, so it was really difficult to find time to see Kiara. One day they stopped messaging her, because she just wasn't responding anymore. 

And just like his mom, John B felt like another woman who was supposed to love him abandoned him. 

John B didn't want to go out anymore, so Pope and JJ just hung out with him at the chateau. He stopped eating, because food is actually quite expensive, and because he really wasn't that hungry. He slept even less than before, so he didn't really slept anymore. 

His dad disappeared three months after Kie left. John B didn't tell anyone. JJ heard it from a cop. He spent exactly 20 seconds being mad at John B for not telling him, then he just remembered his best friend really needed him. 

John B's state had gone worse, and JJ swore his best friend was depressed. Well he didn't know that, it's just something Pope said once when John B refused to get up two days in a row. 

JJ did his best, dragged him to school once a week, made sure he ate a bit, started to sleep in his bed again, just to be sure John B actually tried to close his eyes and sleep. 

JJ was so angry at Big John. He wasn't perfect, but his son needed him. It was usually John B who took care of JJ, and the blond didn't really know what he was doing.

Kiara came back one night. She was crying, a weird story including Sarah Cameron and a ridiculous birthday party Kie wasn't invited at. 

Nobody really talked and Kie just fell asleep curled against John B. 

At some point, JJ and Pope got out of the kitchen with unfrozen lasagnas, and found John B silently crying. Both boys knew if John B's arm wasn't tucked under Kie'a head, the teen would be locked in his bathroom, coping with his breakdown all by himself. JJ handed him a plate, and insisted when he refused it, and curled around the other side of his best friend. 

JJ and Pope fell asleep during the movie, and John B went out to sleep in the hammock by himself. He told himself that maybe, maybe love was worth the risk. Because yes, Kie had left. Because yes, John B fell like everyone he loved would leave, but Kie came back. And Pope, and JJ, they were still here, and John B fell so grateful to have them, that maybe, he could be happy one day. 

Nothing actually changed in the Pogues's lives. Kie was back, no one talked about Big John, John B is still very awkward in public, an awful liar and clumsy as fuck, but at least he has people around him who loved him, and they might give him shit for all of it sometimes, but he knows deeply that they wouldn't leave him for not being enough. He's always enough.


End file.
